human rights violations – Engaging Peace

Were truer words ever spoken?

Posted on February 23, 2016 by kathiemm

In explaining his decision to end the US policy of isolating Cuba, President Obama recently said, “We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state.”

These are wise words. Not a single other country in the world supported the US policy of isolating Cuba, and we should applaud the role of Pope Francis and others who helped the US and Cuba move toward reconciliation.

In discussing steps in the normalizing of relationships, President Obama mentioned the release from Cuban prison of USAID sub-contractor Alan Gross, held for five years on charges of spying, as well as the release from US prison of the final three of the Cuban Five, accused of conspiracy to commit espionage and held in maximum security prisons across the US.

President Obama also referred to human rights abuses in Cuba, proclaiming that “But I’m under no illusion about the continued barriers to freedom that remain for ordinary Cubans” and “I call on all of my fellow leaders to give meaning to the commitment to democracy and human rights at the heart of the Inter-American Charter.”

To avoid rightful invocations of hypocrisy, the United States government needs to review its own barriers to freedom for immigrants and people of color. Ana Belen Montes is still locked up in a psychiatric ward at the ncis. US whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling is still imprisoned for spying (because he provided classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen about deliberate misinformation given to Iran). And also right here in the USA, immigrant children are kept in prison-like institutions.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Framing war

Posted on October 22, 2015March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

By Kathleen Malley-Morrison and Tristyn Campbell, review of “Handbook of Ethnic Conflict: International Perspectives.”

Through the centuries, wars have been labeled in many different ways–e.g., by the nationality of the combatants (e.g., Sino–Japanese War, Philippine–American War), and the country (e.g., Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War) or region (e.g., Persian Gulf War) wherein the violence occurred . Now, of course, we have the “war on terrorism,” located, it seems, everywhere.

In contemporary society, war is generally equated with “armed conflict.” Project Ploughshares identified two major types of armed conflict (interstate and intrastate) and three types of intrastate armed conflict (state control, state formation, and failed state). Generally, since the end of World War II, interstate armed conflict declined, and most armed conflicts have been intrastate.

Framing some forms of intrastate armed conflict as “ethnic” or “interethnic” conflict, as done in the “Handbook of Ethnic Conflict: International Perspectives,” is a relatively recent phenomenon; the handbook provides case studies of 20 ethnic conflicts, including the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Kosovo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Israel–Palestine conflict and Philippines–Mindanao conflict can be seen as examples of what Project Ploughshares labels state formation conflicts, characterized by communal or ethnic interests struggling for regional autonomy or secession. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a prime example of a failed state unable to provide even minimum security to inhabitants.

What is gained by framing these struggles as ethnic conflicts rather than simply intrastate conflicts? Framing conflicts this way reminds us that armed conflicts occur not only between nations, or nations and nonstate parties, or religions, but between people who identify with groups, and who often try to deal with life’s challenges by relying on group memberships.

For scholars committed to understanding the causes of war and peace, such framing humanizes the analyses, rather than embedding them only in abstractions such as “historical events,” “economic factors” and “political causes.”

For psychologists, framing conflicts as ethnic legitimizes viewing them not just as products of political, economic, and historical forces but as clashes involving psychological dimensions that may underlie all other contributing factors. Moreover, categorizing armed conflicts as ethnic reminds us that solutions require attention not just to economic inequalities, human rights violations, and disputed borders, but also to human emotions and ways of thinking.

Think about armed conflicts of relevance to you. Does reframing them in the language of emotions and ways of thinking influence your thinking? How?

Copyright American Psychological Association. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal PsycCRITIQUES. It is not the copy of record. Information about the journal is at http://www.apa.org/psyccritiques/

Today’s Assignment: Human Rights 365

Posted on December 8, 2014December 7, 2014 by kathiemm

Wednesday December 10 is Human Rights Day, a commemoration day for the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The theme this year is Human Rights 365—that is, a reminder that every day should be a human rights day.

Brothers and sisters, we have a long way to go.

Racism violates human rights.
Slavery violates human rights.
Torture violates human rights.
Murder violates human rights.
Prolonged solitary confinement violates human rights.
Even severe poverty is a human rights violation.

Racism, slavery, torture, murder, prolonged solitary confinement, and severe poverty are not things people choose or desire. Nor, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, do people deserve such abominations, even if those people are different, annoying, foreign, other, scary.

The US government is fond of pointing the finger at human rights violations in selected other nations (not, generally, their allies), but such finger pointing is just another example of “Do as I say, not as I do.” All those human rights violations take place in the US today, every day, and all too many people are quick to find “justifications” concerning why racism , slavery, torture , murder, etc., are not human rights violations if done in or by the United States.

On Human Rights Day, 365 days a year, try to listen to a different drummer. Fight racism, fight slavery, fight torture. Raise your voice against murder, solitary confinement, poverty, forced feeding, unequal opportunity, and all the social injustices that infect our society and damage us all. Make the world a better place. Right here at home. Do what you can. 365.